Desperado
by Agent Ninety-Nine
Summary: Will Balto the wolfdog spend Christmas alone? Lyrics from 'Desperado' by The Eagles.


* * *

_Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?  
You've been out riding fences for so long now.  
Oh you're a hard one, but I know that you've got your reasons.  
These things that are pleasing you can hurt you somehow._

* * *

"Is not good, to be alone at Christmas." The large goose sighed. He and his companion Balto were on the deck of the abandoned boat they called home, looking towards the twinkling lights of Nome inland. 

"But I'm not alone, Boris. I've got you," the mongrel replied, a slight chuckle in his voice. Boris, however, was determined to be pessimistic. 

"No presents! No Christmas dinner!" he mourned. 

"No Christmas dinner? But I've got a nice, fat..._goose_!" Balto suddenly pounced on his friend, pinning him to the deck. Boris laughed shakily and pushed the big paws away.   
"Please, not to even joke about such things..." 

It was a harsh winter. Many of the wild things of the forest had moved south, hoping to find a few patches of grass beyond the dense snow. The wolves had followed the game, and their howls no longer rose up to the moon at night. As the sea froze the polar bears Muk and Luk ventured further and further away over the ice to find clear spots where they could catch fish. It was a lonely time for Balto and Boris, and a lean one. 

Almost every day the goose tried to persuade his friend to head into town and set up home with a human family. Since he had headed the sled team which brought life-saving diphtheria serum to Nome during a severe blizzard, everyone had been his friend and he could have lived with whomever he chose. But he preferred his lonely existence, in which he owed nothing to anyone and could come and go as he pleased. Humans were for dogs, not half-wolves. 

"I'm no lapdog, Boris," he would say, shaking his head. 

"Of course not! It would have to be an enormous lap! But you could be _sled_-dog." 

It was tempting. All his life Balto had dreamed of leading a sled team to victory. The harness taut around his body as the driver called "Mush!" and he shot forward, every muscle straining. The run to Nome had been too serious to enjoy, but when it was over he had felt the rush of exhilaration and triumph he had imagined so often. 

But still he could not quite trust humans, who had often ill-treated him in the past. Could he allow a person to tie him up, buckle a harness around him? His lifelong existence as rebel and outlaw was hard to shake off. 

Dogs, too, though he had earned their respect as a leader, regarded Balto with caution, sensing the wildness within. True, there was one dog who had always seen him for what he was and had even fallen in love with him... 

"Jenna," Boris said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts with uncanny accuracy. "Is Christmas Eve. A time for loved ones. Go to Jenna, Balto." 

Balto looked wistful for an instant, then shook his head. "Nah. She'll be with her girl and her family. They won't want me cluttering up the place. We'll have our Christmas here, together. See all the Christmas trees, just for us?" He pointed his muzzle to the forest, where the dark shapes of pine trees stood in snow-capped rows. 

"A Christmas tree should have presents, and lights," Boris pointed out bitterly, folding his wings. "Not snow and...and squirrels!" 

Then the low clouds parted for an instant, and they looked up at the sharp, clear stars of the North. "There you go," Balto said happily. "Lights!" 

* * *

_Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy  
She'll beat you if she's able  
You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.  
And it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table  
But you only want the ones that you can't get..._

* * *

A joint of ham was cooking in the oven, filling the little kitchen with tempting smells that should have made any dog's mouth water. But the lovely red husky didn't seem to be interested. She lay by the door, whining softly to herself, and didn't move even when her young mistress wrapped a festive strand of green tinsel around her neck. 

"Oh, Jenna." Rosey stroked her back. "You miss Balto, don't you? It's not fair that you can't be together at Christmas." 

The husky pushed her nose into the little girl's hand. Rosey always understood. 

"Don't you let that dog out!" her mother cautioned. "It's well below freezing!" 

"But Mom, Balto's out there." Rosey was a kind-hearted child, and she was almost in tears at the thought of Balto all alone with no Jenna and no Christmas dinner. 

"Balto's half wolf. He'll be just fine in the cold; his family have lived through Alaskan winters for thousands of years," her father put in. 

"But he's half dog too!" Rosey protested. Jenna scratched at the door, looking over her shoulder at the adults with a pleading expression. 

"Don't worry about Balto. I tell you what - the day after Christmas we'll take him a big plate of scraps, how about that?" 

Consoled by her mother's promise, Rosey dragged Jenna away by her tinsel collar to watch her make paper-chains out of old newspapers. One of the headlines read: HERO DOG BRINGS LIFE-SAVING MEDICINE. 

* * *

_Desperado, ah, you ain't getting no younger.  
Your pain and your hunger are driving you home.  
And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talking.  
Your prison is walking through this world all alone._

* * *

Balto shivered under his blanket. The old boat's timbers were cracked and broken, and some were missing altogether. The wind found every gap, whistling through to ruffle the dog's fur and chill him to his bones. 

Even Boris was cold, despite the layer of fat that insulated him from the wind and wet. He fluffed up his feathers till he looked like a porcupine and gripped the rail with icy feet. 

"Well, here we are, freezing to death in glorious freedom," he observed. "If I were plucked and in oven, at least I would be warm." 

Balto's nose poked out from under the blanket. "As one wild animal to another, Boris, you're a disgrace. We don't need people. We're free to live as we choose." 

"Or to die." Boris snapped his beak shut in a grim frown and huddled his head down on his chest. 

Balto rolled his eyes good-humouredly. Boris was an old friend and a good one. He might be pessimistic by nature and far too fond of telling Balto what he thought was good for him, but the goose had been the first creature ever to trust the wolf-dog and Balto would never forget it. 

The wind shifted, blowing full in his face. Balto gave a grunt of annoyance and was about to turn round so his back was against the draught when a delicious scent made him emerge fully from his bed, tongue hanging out. The wind spoke of game. 

Leaning on the rail, Balto scanned the shore. He wouldn't have admitted it, but he was very, very hungry. For a while he saw nothing against the still snow, then his keen eyes caught a quick movement, and before he had consciously processed the information his body was up and over the side of the boat, throwing itself after the snowshoe hare. 

The hare was fast, a moving blur of white against the whiteness. But it was a sprinter, while Balto's greater stamina allowed him to keep running for longer. If he could just keep the hare in sight until its strength was spent, he would have his Christmas dinner - in spades! 

He floundered in deep drifts of snow, while the hare skimmed lightly across the surface. The bouncing scut remained out of reach, but it seemed to be getting closer. Balto fixed his eyes on the white tuft ahead and concentrated fiercely until it was all he saw. 

Now his jaws were only a few feet behind the hare; it was flagging. The end was inevitable. Panting harshly, Balto flung himself forward - and was brought up sharply by a wrenching pull to his right hind leg. 

He had caught his paw in a tree root hidden under the snow. The hare had vanished. Balto, lying in a heap, groaned quietly and let his body relax. His whole leg was agony, and when he risked a look he saw the joint at his ankle was already swollen. 

Boris flapped and waddled over as fast as his fat body could manage. 

"If you could only fly this sort of thing wouldn't happen!" he clucked, running his wing along the injured leg. Balto shuddered and closed his eyes. 

"I...I'm OK, Boris." 

"Balto, is broken." The two animals looked at each other. In the wild, a broken limb usually meant death from infection or starvation. 

"You know the difference between dog and wolf now, Balto? When a wolf breaks his leg, he dies. A dog, he gets taken to the vet. I'll go for help." 

"You can't fly in this wind, and it'll take you hours to walk. By the time you find someone who can understand you and bring help, I might be dead." 

Balto lifted his head and stared in the direction of the town. Despite the pain, his tail wagged and he seemed almost grateful for his accident. 

"No two ways about it - I've got to go to Jenna." 

The clouds had lowered again, hanging close to the ground with their bellies full of snow. 

* * *

_Don't your feet get cold in the wintertime?  
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine  
It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day.  
Losing all your highs and lows  
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?_

* * *

His stumbling feet knew the way to Jenna's better than their owner did. Blinded by the thick blackness of the Arctic night and the driving snow which had started again with renewed ferocity, Balto struggled towards warmth and comfort. Once the wind swept him off his paws and into a snowdrift, and he scrabbled his way out to find he had lost the rough trail. 

He had to trust his wolf instincts. The snow was in his nose and eyes so he could not see or scent the way. He stood for a moment listening to the cry of the wind and his own heartbeat thumping in his chest, until he felt the minute tug at his senses that told him which direction to take as surely as a compass. Facing the wind, large paws gripping the frozen ground, he loped on. 

The journey was short, but in this blizzard it would be easy to lose the way. If he strayed even slightly from the right path, he could miss the outskirts of town by a few feet without seeing or smelling a thing. His injured leg, as well as putting him off balance and making him vulnerable to the buffeting wind, increased his chances of walking round in a circle instead of straight. It didn't seem to hurt any more, the pain dulled by the cold, but Balto recognised the symptoms of shock in himself and knew he might collapse before he reached shelter. As he pushed through shoulder-high drifts, a trembling started in his hindquarters and spread along his body until he shook all over. 

He had seldom felt so entirely alone, even when he set out in the blizzard to find Steele and the lost sled team. Boris had reluctantly agreed that his presence would only slow his friend's progress; the snow was deep and, unable to fly in the wind, he would have had to be carried. Balto missed the goose's crotchety backchat and his steadying influence and wished for his company on the lonely run. But it was best that he stayed safely at the boat. Balto's gifts might have been recognised in Nome, but Boris was still a walking meal to most people. 

His three good legs settled into a rhythm and Balto ploughed on. He said Jenna's name to himself with every step. He remembered how she had set a light to guide him home last winter, painting the sky with the colours of the Northern Lights. Now she was the beacon he was aiming for. 

When he stopped to lick his throbbing leg, the flesh was hot beneath the fur. With fever in his bones he would not last long out here. Balto let himself rest for a few minutes, the hurt paw thrust into the snow to numb it. It was tempting to lie in the cool, comforting drift until his fever was soothed away, but he knew it would mean death. He must keep warm, although his body felt as if it was burning. The same endurance and stamina that had carried him to Nome with the serum, the ability to ignore pain and discomfort and just keep on running, pushed him onward now. 

Suddenly his paws met solid ground, where the snow had been melted away by humans with salty grit. This was the main road through Nome. He was in the town. 

He still had to reach Jenna's house, but now his goal was in sight his strength seemed to double. The streets were dark, windows shut tight against the Arctic. Litter and ridges of icy slush churned up by sleds tripped him, but he kept his balance as only a wolf could and maintained his limping trot. 

This was the street, and that was the house, a wreath of greenery hung on the door. Balto's legs were shaking and he felt icy cold. He scratched weakly at the door and barked. 

Jenna had at last been persuaded to leave her vigil and come into the kitchen to eat. So she didn't hear him, even when the last of his strength went and he fell against the wood with a thump. But someone did. 

"Santa!" 

For Rosey, supposedly in bed asleep but in fact gazing up through the window, bumps in the night on Christmas Eve meant only one thing. She flew downstairs in her bare feet and flung the door open onto the cold street before her parents could stop her. 

* * *

_Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?  
Come down from your fences and open the gate  
It may be raining, but there's a rainbow above you  
You better let somebody love you  
You better let somebody love you  
Before it's too late._

* * *

Nome didn't have a veterinarian. Sled dogs were working dogs, and usually if their owners couldn't fix what was wrong, they would be shot. But the town did have a doctor - one who well remembered how it had felt to know that the town's children might die under his care, and that it was Balto who had enabled him to save all their lives. 

When Rosey's father came to fetch him the bonesetter was a little merry, it being Christmas Eve, but as the only doctor for fifty miles he always made sure he was sober enough for emergencies. Soon he was scrubbing his hands before examining the patient; he saw no reason to treat Balto any different to his human customers. 

"Should I muzzle him, Doc? I guess what you're going to do will hurt, and he might take a snap at you." 

"He won't bite me, will you Balto boy?" The doctor ran his hand over Balto's skull, and the long tail thumped. They had laid the big dog on a heap of blankets by the fire, the warmest spot in the house. But nothing was warming him so much as the feel of Jenna's soft body pressed close to his side. 

An injection of morphine into his thigh made the pain seem far away. He winced and growled a little when the broken ends of his ankle bone came together, but the doc's hands were skilled and gentle and he felt almost nothing as the fur on his leg was shaved (Jenna couldn't hide a giggle) and a plaster of Paris bandage applied. 

"You mustn't let him move till it's set, or the bone won't grow straight," the doctor warned. Balto's expression as he leaned against Jenna said plainly that he had no intention of moving. 

Doc accepted a shot of whisky against the cold and headed back to his surgery. Rosey was shooed off to bed with threats of Santa not coming unless she went straight to sleep. Once she was safely upstairs, her parents hung the bare fir tree with tinsel, glass baubles, and even candy canes bought on a trip to Anchorage and hidden away for many months. Mysterious parcels wrapped in bright paper were placed under the tree, and smaller gifts hung from the branches. Jenna watched with wagging tail, enjoying the annual secret she kept with her humans from their girl. To Balto, sleepy and doped and only opening his eyes every few minutes, it was as if the presents and decorations appeared by magic. 

The clock striking midnight woke him from a doze, and it took him a moment to remember where he was. Jenna's humans had all gone up to bed and the room was dark but for the dying fire. The tiny candles on the Christmas tree would be lit in the morning; meanwhile the moon through the window caught the glass and silver ornaments in its light. 

"Happy Christmas, Balto." Jenna, wakeful and watching at his side, nuzzled him gently.   
Her mate gave a tired grin. "Happy Christmas! I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything."   
"Oh, I think you did," murmured the husky, curling up with her head across his paws. 

Balto rested his head on hers and slept until morning. 


End file.
